"Is it a gift from Bemish?" he bared his teeth.
Inis put her hands on her hips.
"And so what?!" she cried out, "If you don't give me beautiful things you shouldn't at least forbid other people do it!"
"You still love him, don't you?" Ashinik screamed.
"Shame on you!"
"You love him! You were just jealous of this bitch Idari! Everybody knows that she had slept with Shavash before Kissur! And then she and Bemish hit it off together! You whored with me to punish your Terence!"
Ashinik could no longer hear what he was screaming; his eyes darted wildly as if they were trying to follow something invisible filling the room. His vision became obscured by a red wavering veil that seemed to separate this place from the otherworld and it could fall apart any moment. Noises and voices were buzzing in his ears as if a TV set had fifty channels on simultaneously… Ashinik was quite familiar with this state — it used to precede an event that his brothers in sect called an "appearance of gods" and Earthmen called a fit.
"Give it to me!" Ashinik screamed grabbing the woman and falling onto the bed with her and he started tearing the necklace off. But the necklace was strong and small and it wasn't easy to either tear the thread or take it off Inis.
"You slept with him, didn't you," Ashinik shouted, "in exchange for this thing?"
"So what," Inis grinned suddenly. "Or are you going to buy a necklace for me with your stipend? What would you have become without Terence, Ashinik? Would you be entertaining a crowd at a fair with your talks about demons?"
Something exploded in Ashinik's mind and white light blazed across it and he heard a familiar voice telling him,
"Kill the demoness! Kill the demon's lover or she will get knocked up and a demon will be born that will destroy the whole world!"
Instead of tearing the necklace, his hands tightened it around Inis' neck. The woman screamed and thrashed. "Pull it! Pull it!" the voice screamed in Ashinik's mind. "Pull it, my son!"
Ashinik regained his senses only in the morning. He lay supine on the red carpet and the morning sun seeped through the blinds. He didn't remember anything except the very beginning of the quarrel.
"Inis," Ashinik called.
There was no response. "She left," a thought passed through Ashinik's mind, "she left for the Earthman!"
Somebody knocked into the door.
"Who is there?" Ashinik asked hoarsely.
"Breakfast," the answer came.
Ashinik walked unsteadily to the living room and opened the door.
A cute maid looked at him with certain sympathy — the young financier's suit was wrinkled and bedraggled and the suit's owner stood there swaying with disheveled hair and black circles under his eyes.
"When did my wife leave?" Ashinik asked hoarsely.
"I don't know," the maid answered and winked slightly at the man, "but if you need a woman…"
"Go away."
The maid rushed out of the room.
Ashinik climbed into the bathtub and washed and shaved himself recovering slowly. His recollections were becoming clearer and now he was absolutely sure that he indeed had had a fit yesterday. Damned Yadan! He drove Ashinik to it with his forked tongue. But how could Inis walk away when he was in the middle of a fit? Did she leave her helpless husband rolling on the floor?
Wincing, Ashinik swallowed two cups of coffee and walked back to the bedroom to change his clothing. Only now he noticed what he had not noticed half an hour ago — a white woman's arm on the carpet, on the other side of the bed, closer to the window.
Ashinik moved nearer and froze.
Inis lay on the carpet on the other side of the bed and the pearls set in silver were scattered all around her — the necklace did snap. A red mark darkened her neck but that was not all of it — her body was hacked and covered in blood and a knife with a bone handle lay next to her.
"Inis!" Ashinik screamed desperately clutching at his wife's face.
Ashinik stood up from his knees in fifteen minutes. He was completely covered with blood now. He swayed. His thoughts darted around like hungry mice in a cage. His memory was getting clearer and clearer. An ugly quarrel had happened at first and a fit followed it. Is it possible that he killed his wife during the fit? It's possible. The police will certainly think along these lines. It will be a gift worthy of an Emperor for Shavash…
What if it was not him? He refused to follow Yadan's orders — Yadan knows that Ashinik loses himself completely during a fit; one of Yadan's men could have been there watching them and he could have punished Ashinik for being obstinate!
It just had to have happened like that!
Though why would the sect need a scandal that would certainly hit it? The "yellow coats" will squeeze everything out of Ashinik! Does Yadan hope that Ashinik will run back to the zealots for help? "Only they can help me," Ashinik thought, "Only they can hide a corpse and hide me."
Or maybe it's not Yadan. It could be a spy of Shavash's. It could be anybody who hates Ashinik. Who hates Ashinik? The whole world hates him! His only home is the sect but the Earthmen took it away from him!
Bemish! Terence Bemish will understand him!
In seven minutes Ashinik, pale but already groomed, climbed out of a taxi at the main spaceport building. He didn't have an ID that allowed access to the service floors anymore but a manager recognized Ashinik and walked him upstairs.
Thankfully, Terence Bemish was in his office. He immediately stood up greeting Ashinik.
"Oh my God, Ashinik! What happened to you? Are you sick?"
"I had a fit," Ashinik said. "What am I saying," a thought glanced in his mind, "When they find Inis, he will immediately think about the fit. On the other hand, I am going to tell him everything…"
But at that point something beeped and whined at Bemish's belt.
"Yes," the Assalah director shouted into the receiver. Having turned it off in five minutes, he said, "Ashinik, I need to go!"
"I will come with you!"
"No, it's ok. Get yourself a coffee and I'll be back in a moment."
He disappeared through the door.
Ashinik mechanically sat down in the office owner's armchair. He was confused and deeply offended that Terence hadn't even heard him out. Several minutes had passed before Ashinik moved. It was not the first occasion when he was sitting in this armchair as the Assalah director's deputy but then he had used his own password…
When Bemish returned to his office in three hours, he didn't find Ashinik there.
"He figured out why I called him to Weia," Bemish thought. He leaned back in the armchair and dialed Ashinik's hotel room number. Nobody picked up a receiver — the room was empty. Bemish called his villa and his headman told him that the mistress hadn't arrived yet and that everything was ready for her arrival accordingly to Bemish's orders.
With a smile Bemish called the border control chief — just in case — and told him not to let Ashinik and Inis off the planet. Time and again later he blamed himself that he hadn't called police at once, though it would have made no difference by then.
In two days at five in the morning, a phone call woke Bemish up at the villa. It was Shavash's personal secretary and Bemish's heart skipped a beat because a phone call so early could be only about Inis — she and Ashinik had disappeared out of the hotel room without a trace like a rotting mushroom would disappear in the earth in the fall.
"Mr. Bemish?"
"Yes."
"Have you seen today's Blue Sun?"
"No, I haven't seen it."
"Take a look."
The secretary hung the receiver.
"Where are the newspapers?!" Bemish screamed rushing out at the terrace.